


trouble in mind

by mercutioes



Category: Friends at the Table (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, extremely unlikely yet somehow heartwarming friendship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-02
Updated: 2018-08-02
Packaged: 2019-06-20 20:14:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 966
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15542121
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mercutioes/pseuds/mercutioes
Summary: “Snitch.  Snitch.Snitch!”“What?”  Snitch Nightly turns to her, sharp features twisted into a picture of confusion.  Rebecca raises her eyebrow meaningfully. Snitch raises his eyebrows, equally meaningfully.  Rebecca heaves an exasperated sigh.





	trouble in mind

**Author's Note:**

  * For [pasteur](https://archiveofourown.org/users/pasteur/gifts).



> a commish for past!!!!! thanks for this wacky & fun request!!!

“Snitch.  Snitch.  _ Snitch! _ ”

“What?”  Snitch Nightly turns to her, sharp features twisted into a picture of confusion.  Rebecca raises her eyebrow meaningfully. Snitch raises his eyebrows, equally meaningfully.  Rebecca heaves an exasperated sigh.

“Snitch, you haven’t told me where we’re  _ going _ ,” she says, putting her hands on her hips and refusing to let him lead her any further down the street.  She is a  _ Lance Noble, goddamnit _ , and she is not going to be yanked around the city by a  _ common criminal. _

“Well, yeah!  That’s part of the surprise!” he protests, gesturing wildly.  Rebecca frowns.

“I  _ hate _ surprises.”

“I know,” he replies cheerfully, linking their arms and dragging her the rest of their way to their destination before she can say a single word.

Which turns out to be one of the mansions in Chrysanthemum Parish, its façade lavish and imposing with incredibly ugly gargoyles guarding the equally lavish and imposing front door.  Snitch marches right past the statuary and shoves a lockpick into the keyhole.

“ _ Snitch! _ ” Rebecca hisses, running up the front steps and tugging at Snitch’s bony shoulder.  “What the hell, are you breaking into  _ someone’s house? _ ”

“Uh, yes?”

She pauses, then:

“ _ Why? _ ”

“Just trust me!” he says, winking at her and pushing the now-unlocked door open with a creak.  He strides in as if he owns the place, throwing his grimy coat to one side of the foyer where it lands on the tiled floor with a  _ fwump _ .  “The guys who own this place are out for the rest of the month so we’re totally safe.”  He marches off into some other room – she can hear him clattering around with something, unseen.

Her friendship with Snitch falls firmly into the category of “unlikely”, perhaps the very definition of strange bedfellows (though... ew).  Nonetheless, he just kept showing up when she was on patrol or they ran into each other at a bar in Helianthus or she had to bust him for hawking in Orchid Parish without a license.  He simply inserted himself into her life and stuck.

“I cannot  _ fucking _ believe I’m doing this,” she mutters, folding her coat neatly and hanging it over the banister.  She keeps her cane firmly in her hand, fingering it absently as she looks around the grand foyer – a huge staircase in mahogany and gold, disgustingly gaudy and probably worth more money alone than she’ll ever see in her whole lifetime.  She wants to be furious with Snitch, but the furtive delight of sneaking into a place like this – a place where people like her, people like him, aren’t ever allowed to go?

It’s just the slightest bit satisfying.

“Snitch?” she calls, her voice echoing around the empty rooms and off the high painted ceilings.  She looks up and snorts to see a lovingly-rendered fresco of Samothes at the anvil, the artist clearly having taken some artistic liberties with how many abdominal muscles belong on a person’s body.

“In here!” he calls back.  She follows his voice past a huge parlor and a bedroom until the hallway opens up into a huge dining room.  The table is set for two, a place at each head and a comically large distance between them. There are platters set at the center of the table, dishes obviously constructed by someone who didn’t make the food but has attempted to arrange the food artfully on the plate.

He’s...  _ he’s lit candles. _

“What the  _ fuck _ ,” she whispers.  Snitch grins.

“Voila!” he exclaims, rushing behind her and pushing her forward to take one of the two seats before scrambling to get to the other end of the table.  “Well?”

“Well...” she echoes weakly, staring at her plate full of artisanal fish and herbed vegetables and perfectly constructed risotto that Snitch absolutely, positively did not make (unless he’s some kind of secret genius chef, which she highly doubts).  He’s got this painfully earnest expression on his face, eyebrows raised almost to his greasy hairline. She rubs the bridge of her nose.

“Snitch, why are we in someone else’s house eating someone else’s food?”

“I thought it’d be nice!” he says, sincerely.  “You know... spending some time together?”

“I’m... Snitch, I’m a lesbian.”

“Oh, I know,” he says quickly.  “You know me, I ain’t exactly going around chasing after ladyfolk.  It’s just...” He picks up his engraved silver spoon and squashes down his pile of risotto with the back of it.  “You’ve been working so hard lately, I figured you could use a nice night off, right?”

It’s not often that she’d describe her feelings towards Snitch (or towards most people) as “warm” but she can’t help but smile at his sheer lack of guile in this moment.  Her smile turns into a snort turns into a fit of laughter that she can’t stop. His eyes go wide for a moment before he’s laughing with her, almost getting the tips of his hair in a crystal tureen full of some kind of soup or sauce or something.

“This was sweet, really,” she manages finally, stomach aching, “but... I know a dive a couple streets over.  Wanna go there instead?”

“Yeah,” he says, a little defeated but still grinning wide as anything.  “Yeah, that sounds much better. I don’t even know what half this stuff is, anyways.”

“Should we throw this stuff out or...”

“Nah, leave it,” Snitch says, standing up and almost upending the tureen.  She catches the flash of silver near his hand and gives Snitch a withering look.  “Come  _ on _ ,” he complains, “they deserve it!”

“Snitch.”

Reluctantly, he places the knives and forks and spoons back on the table.  He looks at her, entreating. “Just one?” he pleads. She sighs heavily, more show than anything.

“Fine.   _ One _ .”

The single spoon he takes is  _ more _ than enough to pay for their drinks that night.


End file.
